Networkers can celebrate a bumper year

The growth in cloud computing and the indispensability of the Internet in our personal and professional lives has made it a bumper year for networkers, according to the latest edition of the Sunday Times Tech Track 100, the annual rundown of the fastest growing UK technology firms.

This year's list of the industry's golden boys was peppered with telecoms, hosting specialists, and even a few Cisco resellers.

Cementing the importance of the web and the growth in cloud computing there were strong showings from IT consultancies and hosting firms, indeed, the bulk of the list was composed of companies with at least a couple of fingers in that particular pie.

Standing out near the top of the pile were managed IT and comms services provider Comtact (13th) and data security and infrastructure provider 365 ITechnology (15th), among many others.

Those providing the nuts and bolts of the business network were well represented, with Cisco partners Celerity and Kelway popping up in 40th and 53rd place respectively.

Meanwhile, more telecoms-focused businesses also made the grade, with names such as Qicomm (28th), Epsilon (37th), Timico (58th) and Entanet (89th) putting in an appearance.

Andrew Dickinson of business comms provider Griffin Internet, which made it to number 76 on the chart, said that the ability to stay a couple of steps ahead of technological development was crucial to inclusion on the list.

"Our partners embraced the ISP in a box concept and sold their own branded broadband as additional monthly revenue streams. When these customers started to demand faster, more secure connectivity we were there with our agile MPLS."

Added Dickinson: "As we see the green shoots of interest in cloud computing and SaaS so we are again ready with virtualised hosting and managed desktop products."

Value-added resellers and service providers interested in reselling Aruba networking hardware and software can learn the benefits of becoming an Aruba Networks partner with this standardized checklist. Compare Aruba's reseller partner program with other vendors' offering similar products.